(03-10-2013 07:44 AM)I and I Wrote: People here in general are the least skeptical and as conservative politically as any rightwing website.

You seriously still believe that bullshit strawman you created of other people's beliefs?

The claim of political conservatism seems unfounded but there is a shard of truth in the first phrase of that statement.

Mindlessly reciting the skepticism of others designated as skeptics doesn't make one a genuine skeptic. That is a travesty of skepticism and its apotheosis was--I think--the ironically named Rational Response Squad. The RRS serves--or at least served--as a benchmark for village atheism, faux skepticism and faux intellectualism. The fuckwit that called himself "Rooke Hawkins" is a retard; what has stuck in my mind for years was his inability to articulate the distinction between figurative and literal language in a false encounter with some hapless Christian on one of the RRS podcasts. The incident stuck in my mind because here was someone of clearly below average intelligence elevated as some sort of subject expert: a community of idiots led by an idiot.

The spirit of rational skepticism is an unrelenting and dispassionate questioning of everything not just the ideas of "stupid X's because they are stupid and I am smart". Your own arguments should be subject to the same scrutiny as those of your "opponent". Turning the ethos of rational skepticism into a puerile in-group/out-group game hijacks the entire enterprise of rational skepticism.

Mindlessly accepting and then committing to memory a set of tropes and then regurgitating them on the presence of some signal doesn't make someone a "skeptic". Furthermore, that very same mentality is what characterises blind religiosity--the form is the same only the content differs.

There are thoughtful theists and thoughtful atheists and there are thoughtless theists and thoughtless atheists. That is the primary division that I observe. The thoughtless theists and thoughtless atheists belong to the same taxon--structurally they have identical cognitive schemata (and social needs) only the content differs. If you doubt this then study the false encounter between the "Way of the Master" and the "Rational Responders": the worst of atheism meets the worst of theism.